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GENESIS OF INVENTIONS 



A PAPER READ BEFORE THE 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 



MAY 5, 1885, 






// ., 
f^^^ 



FRANKLIN A. SEELY, A. M., 

EXAMINER IN THE U. S. PATENT OFFICE. 



{Extract from Vol. Ill, Transactions of the Society.) 



WASHINGTON: 

JUDD & DETWEILER, PRINTERS. 

1885. 



.~-->^ 



GENESIS OF INVENTIONS, 



A PAPER READ BEFORE THE 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 



MAY 5, 188S. 



During the past few years unusual attention has been directed to 
the study of human inventions. The close relations between the 
amelioration of man's condition and the improvement of his me- 
chanic arts have led to the consideration of the subject as one in 
which social science is concerned. It has been observed that insti- 
tutions of every character — languages, laws, customs, philosophies, 
and beliefs — have been largely, if not wholly, the product of in- 
vention of somewhat the same character as that which has produced 
tools and machines. The term invention has acquired a broader 
scope, and includes every subject on which human thought and in- 
genuity and fancy may exercise themselves. Its study is therefore 
of no little consequence. It is no longer limited to the field of 
mere mechanics and physics, but embraces all that concerns what- 
ever has been devised by men to satisfy the material and moral 
needs, either of the individual or of the mass in their various social 
relations. I propose to inquire what are the processes by which in- 
ventions are produced ; what influences lead to them ; what laws. 



if any, they follow ; and what results, immediate and ultimate, 
flo^?^' from them. I conceive that these inquiries are best pursued in 
connection with mechanical inventions. A parallel inquiry might 
be pursued in respect to inventions in the broader sense. In fact 
the study of savage society is, to a certain extent, such an inquiry. 

Before proceeding to the consideration of the subject, it is im- 
portant to call attention to the var-ieus meanings and shades of 
meaning of the word invention, which we have such constant occa- 
sion to employ. A late writer on Patent Law^ refers to this in his 
opening chapter as a source of much confusion, since, as he remarks, 
it is not uncommon to find the word used in different senses in the 
same paragraph, even in the same sentence. He distinguishes four 
meanings of the word : 

(i) The mental act of inventing. 

(2) The thing invented. 

(3) The fact that an invention has been made. 

(4) The faculty or quality of invention. 

It is scarcely necessary to illustrate these significations, since on 
a little reflection they become apparent. We may say of the sew- 
ing machine, it was the invention of Hoive, referring to the mental 
process which produced it ; we may say it is a great or useful inveiir 
tion, meaning the machine itself; we may say the iiivention of it 
revolutionized tiie mamLfacture of clothing, in which we mean the fact 
that it was made ; and we may say of any particular form presented 
to us, there is no invention in it over some earlier form, in which we 
refer to the quality of invention as distinguished alike from the 
mental act, the concrete product, and the historical fact. In view 
of all these uses of the word and not to overload it further, I shall 
venture to suggest a new one to designate the study of invention. 
This study has not yet perhaps developed itself as a true science, 
though it appears to possess all the elements of a science. As 
a study of growing interest it is worthy of a name of its own, 
and, with all deference, I submit to the Society, as an appro- 
priate name worthy of adoption the word Eurematics. f This 
should include the study not of arts, machines, laws or insti- 

* Mervvin. Patentability of Inventions. Boston. 1883. 

'\ EupriiJ.a., An invention. If the Greeks had been in the habit of philoso- 
phizing about inventions, they would have had an adjective, suf/Tj/jArixo'^, and 
the word would have found its place in English long ago, as has eureka. 



tutions in themselves, but of them all in respect to their methods 
of growth and the means by which they have been developed 
and are still developing. This is a study Avhich many are pur- 
suing with eagerness and delight ; and the need of a name for it 
clearly separating it from other kindred studies is every day more 
apparent. 

It is my purpose to present in this paper a brief chapter in this 
science, following out and perhaps to some extent repeating some of 
the thoughts expressed in a paper presented to the Society two years 
ago,^ in which I discussed the nature of the earliest human inven- 
tions, the original germs out of which they grew, and the steps and 
processes by which they were evolved or elaborated. Speculative 
as some of my suggestions may have been as to the nature of these 
primitive inventions, nevertheless the nature of the processes by 
which they were made is so inherent in all arts that it cannot 
be regarded as in any degree speculative. Possibly the inven- 
tions pointed out were not actually the first contrived by man, but 
whatever were the first, the way described is beyond doubt the way 
in which they were arrived at. 

I propose in the course of this paper to discuss the development 
of the stone hatchet in its most finished form; but before doing so 
it is necessary to inquire into the nature of invention and some of 
the general principles it follows. Lying absolutely at the bottom of 
such principles are the following postulates, the A B C of Eurematics : 
Given any artificial implement or product, we must assume — ist, 
tJiat iliere was a time when it did not exist ; 2d, that before it existed 
there must have been a creature capable of producing it; and 3d, that 
such creature before producing it must have been conscious of needing 
it, or must have had use for it. 

There can be no orderly discussion of the genesis of any art 
without recognizing the truth of these postulates at every step. 
Questions may arise upon resultant or collateral propositions, but, 
admitting all that can possibly be claimed for accident as an ele- 
ment in invention, these propositions are not to be questioned. 
They are fundamental, and no logical consequences that flow from 
them can be evaded. 

The first proposition, that before any artificial product existed 

^An Inquiry into the Origin of Invention. Vol. 11, Trans. Anthrop. Soc, 
Washington. 1883. 



there was a time when it did not exist, is not startling, and may be 
passed over for the second : before it existed there' was a creature 
capable of producing it. This is as much as saying that no product 
of art came into existence simultaneously with its producer, and 
seems to be no more startling a proposition than the first ; and yet, 
if I rightly interpret the ideas of most writers, they have failed 
to grasp even so common-place a truth. 

The third proposition, that the producer must have been conscious 
of needing the product, or must have had use for it before producing 
it, is not at first sight so obvious. In fact I believe the failure to 
grasp this truth is a great source of error and misconception among 
many writers. No one, however, who has given any thought to 
the nature of invention, has failed to observe that every step in the 
mechanic arts has grown out of a pre-existing want. Not neces- 
sarily out of a pressing need. Invention now-a-days does not wait 
for the call to be so urgent that waiting can be no longer. Long 
before this stage necessities are anticipated, and the means by which 
they are overcome often do not become indispensable till the very 
habits they engender make them so. Illustrations of this are all 
around us. The sewing machine, the reaper, the telephone — what 
could we do without them ? And yet in our own generation we 
have done without them all. They have themselves created the 
conditions which have made them indisi^ensable. But none of them 
came by accident. They have been, every one, the fruit of years 
of toil and thought and anxiety on the part of those who saw, what 
few clearly comprehended, the imperfection of the mean^ employed 
to do the daily, work of mankind, and studied to produce better 
means. This is the history of steam, of electricity, of railroads, 
of metal working, of pottery, of every art that has a recorded his- 
tory. Prevision and calculation are so truly elements in the growth 
of all known arts that in asserting their universality we incur no 
more risk than did Newton in asserting the law of gravitation. 

What then, it may be asked, is the place due to accident in inven- 
tion ? Notwithstanding a popular belief that many if not most of 
the great inventions have been the fruit of accident, it may be 
asserted that the contrary is true. Fortuitous circumstances, trifling 
unforeseen incidents, have in many cases doubtless suggested expe- 
dients which have led to the consummation of great inventions. 
It was an accident — the result of his poverty— which led Senefelder 
to write on a stone slab his family wash-bill, and so led to the inven- 



tion of the lithographic process; but the accident did not occur, 
and could not, till long and persevering pursuit of a method of 
printing cheap music had brought together the polished stone, the 
ink, the acid, — all the materials necessary to accomplish the result. 
Possibly it was an accident which led Goodyear to the use of sulphur 
for the vulcanization of India rubber; but the accident, if such it 
were, did not occur till years of expense and toil and experiment 
with a great variety of materials had led the way to it. And the 
rubber and the sulphur and all the appliances necessary for the ex- 
periment were ready to his hand, all accumulated in the pursuit of 
his lifelong purpose. Such experiences are common, and familiar 
illustrations of them are found, as for instance, in the lives of Pal- 
issy, the Huguenot potter, and William Lee, the inventor of the 
stocking loom. In these the element of accident enters in some 
degree into the consummation of the invention; but in every case it 
is such accident as might have occurred a thousand times over with- 
out result to other men whose minds were not intent upon the inven- 
tion. Lamps had swung for centuries in the Italian cathedrals, 
and men had idly counted their oscillations as they kept time to the 
tedious delivery of generations of dull sermons ; but the isochronism 
of their swing, if observed at all, was not regarded till Galileo 
came. 

The true and only field that philosophy can concede to accident 
in invention is that it supplements and sometimes abridges the 
labor, calculation, and time of the inventor. To a man filled with 
a steadfast purpose, all his senses alert to every means chance or 
calculation may present to accomplish it, the most trifling incident 
may furnish the clue, which has fled from him like an ignis fatuiis. 
To another the same chances may come and go continually without 
result. And while it cannot be said that accident has no place in 
invention, it must be conceded that its place is completely subordi- 
nate to other elements. Great inventions have been the fruit 
of accident in the same sense and to the same degree that a 
ripened peach is the fruit of the rude blast that shakes it from the 
bough. 

It is important in a discussion like this to keep clearly in mind 
the difference between invention proper and discovery. The 
function of the latter is to bring to light the material facts, and the 
natural laws, which the former applies fo useful purposes ; and in 
respect to discovery, the element of chance, of accident, is im- 



portant. The progress of scientific discovery is marked at every 
milestone by the revelations of accidents, which the thoughtful 
mind of the inventor did not apply to practical ends till long after- 
wards, when the need had arisen. If it was an accident that led 
Galileo to the discovery of the isochronous oscillation of the pen- 
dulum, it was not till fifty years afterwards that this discovery was 
applied to regulate the movement of a clock. The phenomena of 
electricity that accident may have revealed to Galvani and Volta, 
are the basis of inventions that the most active minds of this decade 
are expending their best energies upon. It cannot be denied that 
in discovery accident has pla3'-ed- an important part ; but the more 
this fact is considered, and the more we consider the true function 
of discovery, the more strongly do we find the proposition con- 
firmed that improvements in the arts are not the result of chance 
but of intelligent efforts to supply conscious needs. Hence I shall 
regard this proposition as conceded, and I pass to another. 

{^\) Every Jmmatijnveiition has sprung from some prior inveJition 
or from some prior known expedient. Inventions do not, like their 
protectress, Pallas iVthene, spring forth full grown from the heads of 
their authors. This suggestion needs no argument when made re- 
garding any of the modern inventions. Every one of them is seen 
by the most superficial observer to be built upon or elaborated out 
of inventions and expedients previously in use. It is only when 
we go back of these and study the expedients and appliances out of 
which they have grown, and whose history is unrecorded, that the 
proposition I contend for is not obvious. And yet there is not a 
single one of them which does not Avhen studied exhibit in itself 
the evidences of a similar substructure. In the process of elimina- 
tion we go back and back, and find no resting place till we reach 
the rude set of expedients, the original endowment of men and 
brutes alike. This is a truth which study more and more confirms, 
and from it the proposition stated may be deduced as one of the 
laws of invention. 

It may be deduced as a corollary to this proposition, but at the 
game time a fact determinable by independent observation, that the 
generation of one invention from another is not immediate but 
always through one or more intermediate steps. The effect of every 
invention fundamental in its character is first to generate wants be- 
fore unknown or unfelt. The effort to supply these wants leads to 



new inventions.* These may be quite distinct in their character 
from the original invention to which they indirectly owe their origin. 
They are related to it only as means to supply some want to which 
it has given birth. I shall not pursue this branch of the subject. 
Illustrations will occur to all. There is hardly a branch of industry 
that has not felt the effect of inventions based upon wants created 
by the introduction of petroleum, or the general use of the tele- 
phone. Wood-working, mining, transportation by land and sea — 
all the avocations of men — have felt their influence, have found 
wants engendered by their use, and improvements have been made 
to meet these wants. The wants of primitive man were limited, 
and his inventions were accordingly few. As wants increased in 
number and intensity, inventions multiplied, and the numberless 
wants of modern civilized life are only paralleled by its numberless 
arts and expedients. 

I set it down as a fifth proposition : Inventions ahvays genei'ate 
wants, and these zuants generate other inventions.' 

A sixth proposition is that the invention of tools and implements pro- 
ceeds by specialization. This is true to a certain extent of all arts, 
though perhaps not a universal truth regarding all invention. It 
results, as will be apparent on reflection, from the last proposition. 
A single tool may have a great variety of uses, but, if there is a suffi- 
cient requirement, men will not long be contented with one tool for 
those uses for which it is least convenient. It will be reserved for 
that to which it is best adapted, and other forms will be devised 
better suited for special uses; possibly the parent type may be found 
inferior for all uses to some of its modified forms, and it may, on 
the principle of the survival of the fittest, become obsolete. Look 
at the variety of tools on a joiner's bench, chisels, planes, saws, 
each especially adapted for its particular work, but all pointing 
back to a time when there was but one form of chisel, or plane, or 
saw. The "jack-plane" and "long-jointer" may each.be made to 
perform the work of the other, but they do it very imperfectly. 
The primitive bench plane was like neither, but was the type of 

* A curious instance of this is broui^ht to my attention while writing this paper. 
In consequence of the expiration of the earlier patents on roller-skates, a great 
impetus has been given to their manufacture, the result being the exhaustion of 
the world's stock of boxwood of certain sizes used for rollers. And to supply 
the want so created hundreds of people are trying to invent a suitable and cheap 
substitute for boxwood for this purpose. ^ 



both. There is nothing more striking than the variety of cutlery 
on a well-furnished table. The time is not remote when one knife 
worn at the belt served the purpose of all these, so far as these pur- 
poses existed, and of many others; when the table knife was not 
differentiated from the dagger of the soldier or the tool of the 
artisan. A man then used one knife to cut out a leather sole, to shape 
his arrow, to carve his food, and to stab his enemy. Changes in 
modes of living have led first to the broader specializations ; fashion, 
caprice, and increasing refinement to others; till one scarcely dares 
attempt to enumerate the various forms of carvers and table knives 
of various sorts differing in form and material, each adapted by 
some feature for its particular use, and each the result of some 
degree of invention, with which the tables of Europe and America 
are furnished. Undoubtedly this process has gone on ever since 
man became an inventor, and might be illustrated as perfectly, 
though not so profusely, in the implements and Aveapons of the 
savage as in those of civilized men. x\ll study of inv^ention must 
take account of it. As soon as men began to adapt sticks to their 
use by artificially pointing them they began to find in them various 
degrees of hardness, weight, length, and rigidity, qualities fitting 
them for diverse uses, and as skill and experience were acquired 
they fashioned them accordingly. Likewise when man had begun 
to employ flint flakes, and before he had learned to fashion them 
to his will, he selected from the splinters made by accident or by 
his own unskilled blovvs those which served best such diversified 
uses as he had found out. 

My seventh proposition, and final one so far as this paper is con- 
cerned, is that no aj't makes progress alone. I venture to assert the 
universality of this truth from what is seen in the recorded history 
of all inventions. In the development of the mechanic arts, two or 
more arts distinct in their nature but having close interdependence 
make advance pari passu. If one lags the other is necessarily 
retarded. If one makes rapid progress the other springs forward with 
quickened impulses. An improved utensil or article of manufacture 
maybe the result of or may lead to improved processes and tools and 
machines for producing it, or to improved means for its employ- 
ment. The progress of the steam-engine was long retarded by the 
imperfection of iron- working machines, since perfect cylinders could 
not be produced. The progress of electrical invention has neces- 
sitated the invention of new machines and processes for insulating 



wire. The introduction of illuminating gas has created a demand 
for metal tubing, and machines for its rapid and perfect manufac- 
ture. And so every step in every art is marked by one or more 
corresponding steps in other arts. 

These general principles, imperfectly stated as they are, by no 
means exhaust the study of invention. They only lie at its thresh- 
hold. They are among the more obvious laws which inventions 
follow as they are every day presented to the mind of those who deal 
with them: so obvious, that I have found myself hesitating as to the 
value of their presentation in this form ; a hesitation which is removed 
by observing that, so far as writers upon early inventions are con- 
cerned, they are unnoticed and apparently unknown. Further chap- 
ters in Eurematics might be devoted to the elucidation of other truths 
equally generic and universal, but more intricate and therefore less 
obvious. I might cite for instance the tendency of civilization to 
convert luxuries into necessaries, true not only of absolute civiliza- 
tion but of every stage of it or every step towards it. The effect 
of this tendency upon inventions is marked and positive. I might 
cite the fact that invention is stimulated by rewards and retarded 
by opposition, which history abundantly illustrates, — eminently the 
histories of France in the middle ages, of The Netherlands, of Great 
Britain, and of our own country. Another proposition might be 
that the truth regarding biologic evolution — that the type of any 
species which is to predominate is at its first appearance uncon- 
spicuous — applies equally to the evolution of arts. Many such propo- 
sitions more or less recondite might be stated, the adequate discus- 
sion of which would require a volume ; but I can afford to pass 
them by, as I have not set out upon an exhaustive study. The few 
propositions considered are enough for the present purpose. 

I shall now discuss the progress of invention in a single direction, 
partly as a study in itself, partly by way of illustration of the doc- 
trines I have enunciated. I have selected the stone hatchet for 
this purpose because in some of its ruder forms it represents the 
earliest human workmanship of which any knowledge has come to 
us, and also because in its rudest form it presents the evidences of 
being the fruit of long antecedent growth. Further than this I 
observe that primitive as it indeed is, and in its highest develop- 
ment rude and ineffective in comparison with the finished imple- 
ment of this age of steel, the thoughtful student of invention sees 
in it the culmination for the time being of human art rather than 

2 



10 

the beginning. For the purposes of this paper I regard nothing less 
than the hafted celt as the finished implement whose genesis I shall 
attempt to indicate. 

I assume as the starting point the conclusion reached in my paper 
before referred to/-^ that the earliest mechanical process employed 
by man was the art of working wood by abrasion. This cannot be 
regarded as proven ; absolutely proven it can never be ; but it 
comes in as a link connecting what must have been in the history 
of primitive man with what is revealed to us regarding the man of 
the earliest stone age. This art, or something closely similar to it, 
appears as the immediate derivative of the original mechanical 
expedients of man in a state of nature, and of the wants engendered 
by his human characteristics. Tracing back the art of wood work- 
ing we find no resting place till we come to the art in this condition. 
In short the more the subject is contemplated, and from whatever 
point of view, the stronger appear the probabilities, so strong that 
to my own mind they are convincing. Starting from this basis, 
what was the process, what the result sought, what the methods 
employed to produce it ? 

The object sought for was a pike, a strong, rigid, sharp-pointed 
stick or shaft adapted for use as an offensive and defensive weapon, 
a want early felt and hitherto imperfectly supplied by chance and 
nature. The means employed was a rough rock, a coarse sand- 
stone or mill-stone-grit upon whose exposed surface the wood was 
rubbed or drawn back and forth until reduced as desired. A tedious 
process, but not more so than many of those employed to this day 
in^the arts of savage life. We can imagine men coming from great 
distances to the inventor of this art with poles on their shoulders to 
be prepared in the new style. It would not at once be perceived 
that no special properties attached to this particular rock, that rocks 
having similar properties and perhaps better suited to the purpose 
were everywhere. The mind was dull in grasping the essential fact 
of the art, and perhaps for ages superstition and fetichism may have 
been engendered by this very improvement. It is easy to see, 
however, that it had created a new want, or perhaps intensified the 
old one. Pikes were liable to be broken, w^re subject to natural 
decay. They must be replaced, and new ones were always in de- 
mand. Their artificial production had increased the number of their 

* An Inquiry into the Origin of Invention. Vol. II. Trans. Anthrop. Soc. 
Washington. 1 88^. 



11 

possessors, and the want of a ready means for the replacement was 
more widely felt. To the majority it was a new want. Hence among 
people widely scattered, more convenient and accessible means were 
sought for supplying the demand ; and in answer to this want came 
the discovery, perhaps the result of similar experiences and obser- 
vations, that gritty rocks every where would yield the same results 
to similar manipulation by the hands of any one. And a further 
discovery followed close on the heels of this, that the jagged edges 
of flints and other hard rocks would by a manipulation but little 
varied perform the work better and faster than the gritty surface of 
the sand stones. A stick drawn forcibly over such a sharp edge 
has its surface scraped from it in thin shavings instead of being 
merely abraded as heretofore. This important step from abrasion 
?o scraping, which is in fact cutting, was therefore reached before 
any cutting or abrading tool had been devised. Reached by slow 
steps, in answer to a felt want, but a want in no way pointing to it, 
it was actually the invention of another and quite distinct- mechani- 
cal process. It was a better process, gave better results, and the 
weapon and the art of wood working made progress together. 

We have advanced one step, man* now has the notion of the cut- 
ting edge and its use. But it is part of an immovable bowlder or 
ledge, not always accessible, and the want of a convenient means 
always at hand is but partially supplied. The long pilgrimages 
which had to be taken to the primitive pointer of pikes were at 
an end, but the journeys though shorter still have to be made. How 
was the next step, resulting in the production of a portable cut- 
ting implement, to be accomplished? 

It will be seen at once that in the use for a considerable period 
of the edge of a rock for cutting purposes it Avill become dulled. 
Other parts of the rock having exposed edges will be sought, and 
these will become dull in turn. This dulling process proceeds more 
or less rapidly according to the material applied to it ; and as the 
harder woods were found to be in all respects more serviceable they 
were more generally used. We may conceive that at some time by 
the violent application of a hard piece of timber to an edge some- 
what thinner than ordinary, the edge itself instead of being merely 
dulled is broken off, and to the pleasant surprise of the operator a 
nev^ edge, sharp and clear, and better than the half-dulled one he 
had been using, makes its appearance. And he eventually learns 
that he can at any time produce a new edge by shivering off a piece 



12 

of the rock with blows. He is not long in learning that the part 
broken off has similar edges. If it be large enough to lie firmly he 
can employ it as he does the parent rock. If smaller, he may hold 
it firmly with his feet while he manipulates the wood upon it with his 
hands. Perhaps he can carry it away and use it at the place most 
convenient to him; when dulled he can shiver it by a blow or two 
and it is sharp again. And then at last by slow degrees, requiring 
ages perhaps, one can hardly tell how, but by the continuance of this 
process, he observes that these splinters struck from the fragment, 
these fragments of fragments, possess the same cutting edges as the 
original rock, and in a bit of stone not larger than his hand or his 
finger he possesses an instrumentality capable of doing all that he 
and his ancestors have been laboriously doing on the parent rock 
or clumsy fragment. He learns also that instead of dragging thfe 
wood over the edge, he can, Avitli a totally different manipulation, 
hold the wood firmly and operate on it with the stone splinter, and 
the tool is invented.^ 

When I think of man in his primitive condition, as the logical 
necessities of this subject have compelled me to think of him, help- 
less, miserable, the prey of beasts, without tools, withour means of 
defense except such as he shared with the beasts, and then think of 
him in the condition to which he is brought in this outline of his 
inventions, I find it impossible to adequately express my sense of 
the progress he has made. One effective weapon, its structure im- 
proved, and skill in its use acquired by generations of experience, 
and one cutting tool, even in the rudimentary form, of an unfash- 
ioned flake, have separated him incalculably from the condition of 
his ancestors. His knife or hatchet, as we may henceforth call it, 
contained within it all the possibilities of the future, but for the 
present — his present — its capabilities were learned by constant les- 
sons and with every new occasion. He had no want to which it 
did not minister. It not only served its first purpose to prepare his 
weapon, but it became itself a weapon. It served him to procure 
and prepare his food, both animal and vegetable, his shelter, his 
raiment, if he had reached the stage of wanting raiment. Its 

* It is only by a loose construction of language that this can be called the inven- 
tion of a tool. The tool, a mere flake of stone, had already long existed. The 
actual invention was an art or process quite distinct from any heretofore employed. 
The brief aind more popular form of expression may be employed with this 
explanation. 



13 

acquisition was the greatest step he had taken in invention; and 
when we regard Avhat has grown out of it, the infinite variety of 
cutting tools, implements, and machines, whose origin we remotely 
trace to it, and the unnumbered needs they supply, we cannot 
hesitate to ascribe to it the highest place among all the inventions 
of all time. 

If the hafted celt was for the time the culmination of art, this is 
not less true, of its time, of the flint knife. As in man's rudest 
estate he used the expedients with which nature endowed him, 
selecting those best adapted to his immediate purpose, so now out 
of the diverse forms assumed by flakes and chips, he selects those 
best adapted for particular purposes. He is repeating what occurred 
in his earliest period, but with new and diversified wants, wider 
intelligence, and a greater range of material out of which to select. 
He finds blunt edges give satisfactory results in the old process of 
scraping wood, but he finds that thinner and sharper edges pene- 
trate the wood deeper, and remove the superfluous material faster. 
He finds he can work more deftly, more conveniently, can put a 
finer point on his weapon, can apply the new tool to all parts of it, 
can reduce and trim the shaft as well as the point, can even sever 
the growing saplings to obtain his material. He finds that some 
forms can be made to penetrate and divide the tough skins of beasts, 
and' carve their flesh. In fact, in whatever direction his necessities 
or inclinations lead him, he finds his knife in some form contribut- 
ing to his comfort, his protection, and the supply of his wants. 
The possession of the tool has wrought out his mastery over nature. 

This^ culmination in invention is but momentary. It is a mile- 
stone, a breathing place in the history of arts. But the march 
still goes on, and we find man still searching among fragments for 
forms adapted to his particular uses, but 'gradually learning by 
experience that by well-directed blows he can sometimes produce 
chips having special forms, and so fitted for special uses. But these 
are chips and flakes only. There is no attempt as yet at dressing, 
or shaping stone. The rude forms they bear when shivered from 
the rock, are all that man has yet conceived in the structure of a 
stone implement. These rude forms seldom appear in our museums. 
They are the scoff of archaeologists. They are not distinguish- 
able from the work of the elements. In fact, the splinters thrown 
off by frost or fire may have been as readily selected for use as 
those formed by human agency. And as writers have agreed upon 



14 

the name palceolithic to indicate the age marked by the first 
traces of human workmanship in stone implements, we must recog- 
nize the protolithic age, in which stone fragments showing no 
trace of such workmanship were the common implements of man- 
kind. The earliest age of wrought implements could never have 
come but for such a precursor. The rudest wrought forms did not 
appear till something of the same nature and used for the same pur- 
poses, but imperfectly adapted for their performance, had created 
the need of them and led up to the means for its supply, and the 
one thing which bore these relations to the earliest recognizable 
forms of dressed-stone implements was the unformed flake. 

What were the steps from this form of flint knife, or scraper, or 
hatchet, to the hafted celt? 

I formerly reached the conclusion that the original endowment 
of man could include no less than the stick and stone for striking 
and hurling, and the string or withe for tying or binding. In the 
course of this paper I have traced the synchronous development of 
the art of dressing wood, and of stone appliances for the purpose. 
With the advancement of these it is not to be supposed any former 
art or e^^pedient was lost. On the contrary it is to be presumed 
that progress in them had been made corresponding to that we have 
been following. The club was better fashioned ; approved forms 
of hurling-sticks may have been discovered and come into use. 
Greater skill may have been acquired in the use of the hammer-stone, 
and judgment in the selection of suitable forms either for crushing, 
or for splitting, and with more convenient hand-grasp. The flexi- 
ble vines and strips of bark, with which primitive man lashed his 
frail shelter, his successor may have improved by rudely twisting the 
fibres or strands, or have supplemented by other materials, notably, 
after he had acquired the use of the flint knife, by strips of skin and 
animal tendons. The inventory of his possessions then would 
embrace the club and pike, each clearly specialized, the hammer- 
stone, not formed by art but selected, the stone knife, and strings 
of various materials. The pike, the hammer stone and knife may 
have been of many forms. Now it will be seen that these elements 
may be brought together in various ways so as to accomplish a 
variety of results, the elements in every case being a stick, a stone, 
and a string to bind them together, and the difference in result de- 
pending on the particular form of stick and stone. For instance 
the heavy end of a club is made heavier by lashing to it a hammer 
stone — result the mace. The pike is improved by securing to it a 



15 

pointed flake of flint. A flint flake too small for the hand is made 
effective by fixing it to a piece of wood, making a knife or dagger. 
A heavier sharp-edged fragment secured to a handle adapting it for 
striking, becomes the axe or hatchet. What immediate incidents 
or needs led to any of these combinations, I do not propose to 
guess. It is enough to have shown that at a period when man was 
as yet unlearned in respect to any dressing of stone beyond knock- 
ing off rude splinters from a rock, he may have had in his posses- 
sion the means to produce, and was fully capable of producing, such 
implements and weapons as I have named. This being true, the 
same wants which might at any period of his history have led to 
their production may without violence be presumed to have done so 
then. They are in the line of his acquired arts, and the necessary 
links between these and the arts he is yet to acquire. 

Whether these various combinations were made prior to actual 
working of flint it would be idle to speculate. It is more likely that 
neithe'r preceded the other. While man was finding out how to use 
his possessions by bringing them together in new combinations, he 
was naturally improving them all. Having found the flint and 
other rocks of similar texture so far obedient to his power that they 
could be shattered, and new and useful forms produced, having ac- 
quired uses for these forms, having learned the purposes to which a 
sharp edge could be applied, and that a fresh one could be pro- 
duced by knocking off the dulled one — it followed in due course, 
from experience, to form the new edge with less violent blows, with 
more judgment and dexterity, and, as the advantage of special forms 
became apparent, with a view to bringing it as close as possible to 
such forms. And all this time the old art of reducing by abrasion 
had not been lost; applying it now to the stone as finer and finer 
chipping suggested and provoked the desire for a smoother edge, 
the celt appeared, polished at first on its edge only, afterwards on 
its entire surface. There was no dividing line between the palge- 
olithic and neolithic ages. If separated at all, it is by a broad zone 
through which the implements of both are found side by side. 
Neither was there any step from the finished celt to- the hafted im- 
plement. The essential step, that of securing a stone in some form 
to a handle, had been taken long ago. 

Lest it might be suggested that in order to sustain a theory regard- 
ing the developement of the arts, I have myself been led to invent 
steps in art that were never known to man, it is worth while to remark 



16 

that none of the steps I have set forth are imaginary. All of them 
are in existence and in use yet, in their appropriate places, often 
amidst the completest appliances of modern mechanic arts. If the 
primitive man sharpened a stick by rubbing it over a rough grit, 
he used the same means an artist employs to-day to produce a fine 
point on his pencil, and the same by which we sharpen all cutting 
tools. The scraping tool is one of the ordinary provisions of a 
joiner's outfit; but the use of a bit of broken glass is more common 
still. As the edge becomes dulled by use, the glass is simply broken 
and two fresh edges are formed. This is universal in civilized life, 
and a curious instance of it in savage life has just been brought to 
light by the Rev. Lorimer Fison, in his pamphlet on the Nanga or 
Sacred Stone Inclosure of Fiji, in which he relates often having 
seen ''a mother shaving her child's head with a bit of glass, and 
biting a new edge on the instrument when it became dull," These 
original arts have never been lost. Probably it is a general truth 
regarding mechanic arts that no one of them once commoitly ac- 
quired is ever again lost. It may be laid aside for a time or sus- 
pended, but it revives in some form ; and I venture to think that 
much of the eloquence that has been expended upon the " The Lost 
Arts ' ' has resulted from a very imperfect acquaintance with those 
that exist. 

It is apparent that every step in the progress that has been recited 
resulted in an improvement in man's condition. The first improved 
weapon, club or pike or missile, was equivalent to so much greater 
strength of arm or length of reach. It augmented man's superior- 
ity over the brutes ; it made his life less precarious ; it put the 
means of securing food, shelter, and covering more fully within his 
power. His environment, to which he had in his primitive con- 
dition been completely subject, he now could to a certain extent 
control, could subject to himself. The first improved means of 
fabricating a weapon, the first tool or mechanical process, accom- 
plished these results in an increased ratio. The step that made the 
cutting tool the possible possession of every man, which made the 
knife even in its clumsiest form a common tool, did for the whole 
race what the earliest steps did for a limited number, and made this 
amelioration general. The increased number of forms and varieties 
of tools and weapons, growing out of the diverse and manifold 
wants they were adapted to supply, were each steps in the better- 
ment of his material condition, each an indication of progress; 
man's advance towards civilization, slow as it must have been, was 



17 

marked off step by step by the advances he made in his mechanic 
arts. The more he became independent of nature and capable of 
forcing her into his service the more time and inclination he found 
for the perfecting of his implements ; and the more he perfected 
his implements the more capable he became of subduing nature. 
And this interaction has never ceased, it goes on to-day. But the 
achievements of to-day are not the conquest of savage beasts, nor 
the solution of the problems of food and shelter and warmth. We 
are overcoming time and distance ; we are conquering the barriers 
of sea and mountain; we are finding out the more hidden forces of 
nature, and subjecting them. The fruit of our inventions is not seen 
in rough flakes of stone lashed by sinew to rude hafts, but in the 
mighty movement of the railway train thundering across the conti- 
nent, or the click of the telegraph as London talks with Calcutta. 
And every step in progress has been a step in the improvement of" 
man's condition from the first to the last. And so it shall be in 
the future. 

Artists depict the genius of invention as a voluptuous female 
figure, in various stages of imperfect attire, attended by innocent 
boys in their primitive nudity, arid with gear wheels and anvils and 
other rough equipments of the artisan in ill-assorted proximity. 
This is a feeble conception. The genius of invention is not a crea- 
ture of delicate mould, but one of brawn and sinew. His voice is 
no gentle song of lullaby, but comes to us in the deafening clatter 
of Lowell looms and the roar of Pittsburgh forges. Mighty and 
beneficent and responsive to human wants — this is the kind of song 
he sings in his rugged rhythm : 

" I am monarch of all the forges : 

I have solved the riddle of fire; 
The amen of Nature to cry of man 

Ansv\^ers at my desire. 
I grasp with the subtle soul of flame 

The heart of the rocky earth ; 
And hot from my anvils the prophecies 

Of the miracle years leap forth. 

I am swart with the soot of my furnace, 

I drip with the sweat of toil ; 
My fingers throttle the savage waste, 

I tear the curse from the soil ; 
I fling the bridges across the gulfs 

That hold us from the To-Be ; 
And build the roads for the bannered march 

Of crowned humanity." 



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